Welcome, virgins!

Welcome to the yeah write family to our two newbies this week, and a slap on the back to our returning friends from long ago. We hope you enjoyed basking in the camaraderie of the most supportive blogging showcase and writing challenge on the web. Join us next week!

Editors’ picks

Congrats to those who made the invitational grid! Each week the challenge grid hits 30 or more entries, the editors swoop in and grab their favorites. We have a giftie for you because we are super-proud of your work. Look => over there! In the side bar! Grab an editor’s pick badge to display on your blog for everyone to see.

With three first place votes from the editors, Michelle Longo of The Journey takes this week’s Jury Prize with the hilarious “The Neglection of Flour-Baby.”

The post works on several levels. The character of the babysitter is drawn not by describing her physicality or her outfit or even her mannerisms, but by effortlessly capturing her voice. We hear the conversation ring in our ears and we nod, “Yes. That is a clueless teenage girl.” My favorite line of dialogue is this: “Yo, so, like, maybe I’ll bring it tomorrow. But, like, that thing is legit heavy, so I’m all like whoa.” A close second? “Yoooo, but some teachers, they’re cool, right? If your baby has death, you get to write an obituary and you still pass. But some are straight up bad, man, because if your baby gets death and you write the obituary, you still fail.” Only an observant writer with a great ear could capture that and weave it into story, not simply a series of one-liners.

The post is also a model in how to show the ironic, without spelling it out for the reader. Never does Michelle come out with the punch line, screaming “Hey, get it? She’s telling me how hard it is to take care of a baby when she’s babysitting my kid.” Instead, she simply tells us what happened next, the ridiculous building upon the ridiculous, until the very end. If you haven’t yet, you really must read the post to learn how flour-baby fared.

And now this from Flood

You guys might think that it’s easy being the submissions editor, but really there’s a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth. No one is rooting for you as much as I am. I want you to succeed the first time around and if I can see a way your post can be improved to do better on the grid, I’ll send you note.

Since we started more strictly monitoring the grid for anecdotes and personal essays four weeks ago, I’ve sent a lot of emails and had to duck for cover. This week was a wonderful exception. Only four posts were returned. Two were for going beyond the word limit and one was fiction. I was iffy on a couple other posts but it was comments from Jessie of the Jester Queen that elevated these and made me see their yeah write value in a new light. For her thoughtful view on your terrific posts, we’re bring back the comment karma badge and awarding it to the Jester Queen. Thanks, Jessie, for the time you took to see the world from each writers’ view.

Weekend moonshine grid opens today at 6 p.m. eastern time!

Yeah write is now open on the weekends—no editors, no voting, no writer’s block—just hanging out in the clearing among the trees and discarded moonshine jugs. Use this chance to show the yeah write community the other side of your blog—your top 10 lists, your stream-of-consciousness posts, that hilarious text message exchange with your brother. No commercial or sponsored posts allowed, but this will be a good space for letting us all know when you have a cool blog event coming up.

The moonshine grid opens at 6 p.m. eastern time each Friday and will close by 12:01 a.m. each Monday. Grab the badge from the sidebar and go find the perfect post to share!

Win-win

The thumbnails are now sorted in the grid from most votes to the least. In the case of a tie, the thumbnails are additionally sorted by page views. Part of the top row five? Please grab a winners’ badge from the sidebar and display it proudly on your own blog. Congrats!

Do not be discouraged if your blog has landed near the bottom of the grid; it is always a tight race. The fun lies in getting better exposure for your blog and in the spirit of competition as incentive to improve your writing and blogging skills. It’s a win-win for everybody involved.

Thanks again, everybody, for linking up, for reading, for accepting the weekly writing challenge. And for making yeah write the most welcoming spot on the Interwebs for writers who blog and bloggers who write.

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7 Comments

I owe this all to you. I mean, literally, yes, because of the votes, but I don’t think I could have written this post a year ago or even 6 months ago. I say that this is a very supportive community and THIS is why. You all kept telling me to keep at the lighter stuff, the funnier stuff. I didn’t think I had it in me and when I’d publicly whine about my lack of confidence, someone from this community was always there to pick me up and encourage me to keep going.

Thank you. The posts on the grid this week were so, so good – congrats to the rest of the top row and everyone who keeps showing up, keeps supporting each other, and keeps showing the love. You all make this such a great place to be, every single week.

Wow, thank you for the Editor’s Pick, and I’m excited about my Top Row 5, as well! This is such a talented and supportive group of writers, it makes those honors that much more meaningful. Whether I’m on the top or the bottom, I always have fun at Yeah Write!!!